Should TFS be blamed for the treatment of Yamcha?

[IntangibleFancy]

I get that Toriyama has it out for Yamcha for some weird reason. But the hate for Yamcha never really got serious until TFS got into the picture. (there's a post on Gamefaqs that gives a list of what has happened to Yamcha since his death) I keep getting mixed messages between people realizing that TFS did fuel the fire and people who believe Toriyama started it by himself.


I need someone to clear this out for me.

[rereboy]

TFS is a parody-comedy and it makes fun of every character.

If there's anyone to blame it's the fans who exaggerate way too much and take that exaggeration as if it's the truth.

[IntangibleFancy]

TFS is a parody-comedy and it makes fun of every character.

If there's anyone to blame it's the fans who exaggerate way too much and take that exaggeration as if it's the truth.

Yeah but Yamcha gets it the worse. There aren't many Yamcha related things on the internet without a TFS quote about how bad he is.

I do agree with the fan thing.

[rereboy]

Yeah but Yamcha gets it the worse. There aren't many Yamcha related things on the internet without a TFS quote about how bad he is.

I do agree with the fan thing.

It's easy to make fun of Yamcha because he never accomplished anything in the source material. He never even won (by himself) a fight against a relevant character in the whole manga, for example.

However, TSF doesn't make more jokes about Yamcha than other characters. For exemple, Krillin is FAR more made fun of in TSF than Yamcha just due to the fact that he appears more in the series. I mean, he even has a dedicated owned counter...

If Yamcha has it worse in terms of jokes online, that's just because fans make use of the fact that he is pretty easy to make fun of and exaggerate even harder than usual.

[VegettoEX]

Yamcha as a somewhat self-aware and playful butt-of-the-joke has been a "thing" that more than predates TeamFourStar. This is
precisely (part of) what makes him such a lovable and endearing character. See: the entire first arc of the series.

Same with Kuririn. See: DBZ movies, specifically 1, 2, 6, 7, and a little 8.

People were fans of this series before TeamFourStar existed.

[Chuquita]

Seconding. I always thought the Yamcha memes originated and were more popular in Japan in the way that Brolli was considered a joke in Japan long before fans thought similarly internationally.

[Metalwario64]

If there's anyone to blame it's the fans who exaggerate way too much and take that exaggeration as if it's the truth.

Yeah, DBZA fans tend to be like Broly fans. It's annoying to me that everywhere I go someone always brings it up and declares it as the "best" version of the series and how the original DBZ sucks and that Abridged makes it a "good" show, and every top YouTube comment in any DBZ video is an abridged quote.

Seconding. I always thought the Yamcha memes originated and were more popular in Japan in the way that Brolli was considered a joke in Japan long before fans thought similarly internationally.

Yeah, there surely aren't enough people in Japan who watch Abridged (if it even has a Japanese translation), and Yamcha's death is a meme in the same vein as Broly.

[8000 Saiyan]

Probably not, since Yamcha was always treated as a joke.

[TheBigBoy]

every top YouTube comment in any DBZ video is an abridged quote.

Veering off topic, but this drives me crazy for some reason.

[Kunzait_83]

Here's a better question: Why does it seem like a lot of people seem to REALLY want TFS to have this seismic impact on Dragon Ball or be the arbiters behind things that go on and directly affect its output (now that it actually even HAS any new output of note to affect once more). That seems to be the implication behind a lot of these kinds of threads: "Do you think TFS is the real reason that X is now a thing with DB?" "I think that TFS really started this thing that's now visible in DB" etc.

Like... what the fuck? Why does it even matter? And why is this something that people seem to desperately want to be the case? Why even care so much about TFS? Is this some kind of fan wish fulfillment thing? Like "if TFS, a fan project, can directly impact what goes on in making DB, then maybe I can someday too"? Is that what this is? I honestly don't know, but I'm genuinely curious as to the motivations behind people constantly asking these sorts of questions and having this intense investment into whether or not TFS has any sort of sway or impact on what goes on with DB's behind the scenes.

[Metalwario64]

Here's a better question: Why does it seem like a lot of people seem to REALLY want TFS to have this seismic impact on Dragon Ball or be the arbiters behind things that go on and directly affect its output (now that it actually even HAS any new output of note to affect once more). That seems to be the implication behind a lot of these kinds of threads: "Do you think TFS is the real reason that X is now a thing with DB?" "I think that TFS really started this thing that's now visible in DB" etc.

Like... what the fuck? Why does it even matter? And why is this something that people seem to desperately want to be the case? Why even care so much about TFS? Is this some kind of fan wish fulfillment thing? Like "if TFS, a fan project, can directly impact what goes on in making DB, then maybe I can someday too"? Is that what this is? I honestly don't know, but I'm genuinely curious as to the motivations behind people constantly asking these sorts of questions and having this intense investment into whether or not TFS has any sort of sway or impact on what goes on with DB's behind the scenes.

That's not even to mention that the Abridged cast had a cameo that was cut from their Buu Kai dub, which probably fanned that flame of "validation".

[Zephyr]

If you asked this last year, I'd say "no way they know or care enough about some random shit pertaining to online western fandom".

But now we live in a world where things like Gohan and Broly's popularity in the West is officially acknowledged, and obviously being pandered to. So now I do slightly have to wonder.

[jjgp1112]

Yamcha's joke status started...pretty much after the first loss to Jackie Chun and became even sillier after the Shen debacle that left Bulma and the others openly joking about him never making it past the first round. And Japan was doing the dead Yamcha pose meme long before TFS came into the picture, and surely there's not many people over there who have even heard of Abridged.

[Kunzait_83]

That's not even to mention that the Abridged cast had a cameo that was cut from their Buu Kai dub, which probably fanned that flame of "validation".

That actually ties in with another sect of fandom that gives me a brain aneurysm: people who directly equate production of the Japanese series in importance with production of the FUNimation dub as directly comparable. Despite the fact that only ONE of those two things is the thing that's actually MAKING the show and creating the story and characters from wholecloth (be it on Toriyama's or Toei's end) and the other one is pretty much doing fuck-all besides getting some VAs to play Whose Line is it Anyway? with the already long-since previously finished result.

If you asked this last year, I'd say "no way they know or care enough about some random shit pertaining to online western fandom".

But now we live in a world where things like Gohan and Broly's popularity in the West is officially acknowledged, and obviously being pandered to. So now I do slightly have to wonder.

I'm not sure which point specifically about Gohan you're referring to, but with regards to Brolli: he's ALWAYS been popular in Japan. He's the only movie villain to get multiple sequels. He gets used for video games fairly regularly. He was a staple of fandom overall from the moment movie 8 had first come out well LONG before anything to do with the FUNimation dub had ever existed.

Brolli's popularity ain't solely a Western thing. Sorry to break it to all of you, I know there are vitriolic haters of the character who desperately want it to be just the U.S. who like him this much. But he's been an ever-present ubiquitous entity in DB fandom since 1993. So it ain't just Americans, and it sure as hell didn't somehow START with U.S. dub fans.

[Kanassa]

TFS did 9/11 after landing in Roswell!

[Zephyr]

If you asked this last year, I'd say "no way they know or care enough about some random shit pertaining to online western fandom".

But now we live in a world where things like Gohan and Broly's popularity in the West is officially acknowledged, and obviously being pandered to. So now I do slightly have to wonder.

I'm not sure which point specifically about Gohan you're referring to, but with regards to Brolli: he's ALWAYS been popular in Japan. He's the only movie villain to get multiple sequels. He gets used for video games fairly regularly. He was a staple of fandom overall from the moment movie 8 had first come out well LONG before anything to do with the FUNimation dub had ever existed.

Brolli's popularity ain't solely a Western thing. Sorry to break it to all of you, I know there are vitriolic haters of the character who desperately want it to be just the U.S. who like him this much. But he's been an ever-present ubiquitous entity in DB fandom since 1993. So it ain't just Americans, and it sure as hell didn't somehow START with U.S. dub fans.

No, I'm fully aware that Broly's insanely popular in Japan. That's.....kind of difficult to not notice.

There was recently some explicit mention of his popularity over here, though. I can't remember where, when, or it what specific wording, but they were definitely implying some Western-fandom pandering. Or maybe I'm mis-remembering something, who knows.

[Kid Buu]

I think it is more of a factor rather than the sole reason, so I wouldn't place the blame on TFS.

[Dbzfan94]

Partly, yes. Because their fanboys are a bunch of sheep and just spit out the memes / jokes from abridged as canon (like Piccolo is Gohan's real dad)

[Dbzfan94]

every top YouTube comment in any DBZ video is an abridged quote.

Veering off topic, but this drives me crazy for some reason.

It drives me crazy too. I know it shouldnt but so many people just quoting the abridged on non-abridged videos is just annoying. One of the many reasons I stopped going into the comment section.

[precita]

The internet basically ruined the Dragonball fandom forever, news at 11.